The Roundup -

Human & Labor Trafficking

On Tuesday, June 19 at noon bring your lunch and join us at the MonDak Heritage Center to hear about how labor and sex trafficking can be found in any area. Georgia Cady with the Tumbleweed Organization will give tips on spotting trafficking, who to contact if you see or hear something, and what services are available in our area to assist in the prevention of human and labor trafficking.

Presented by Sidney JSEC, Tumbleweed Runaway Program and 4Get Me Not Victim Services. For more information call Margie at 406-433-1204.

Human Trafficking: the use of force fraud or coercion to compel a person into nay form of work or service against their will.

Labor Trafficking: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.

• Does not distinguish between children and adults.

• Force, fraud or coercion must be present.

Sex Trafficking: Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children-makes it illegal to recruit, entice, obtain, provide, move or harbor a person or to benefit from such activities knowing that the person will be caused to engage in commercial sex acts where the person is under 18 or where force, fraud or coercion exists.

• All children under the age of 18 who are induced to engage in commercial sex are victims of sex trafficking.

• No need to demonstrate force, fraud, or coercion.

Tumbleweed Information:

The Tumbleweed Runaway Program is a non-profit, community-based agency, founded in 1976, which provides services to runaway, homeless, and otherwise at-risk youth and their families. Tumbleweed’s crisis counseling and youth services are available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Tumbleweed’s vision is to end youth homelessness in our community. We do this through building and sustaining a top-notch team and providing youth focused programming that evokes lasting life change.

Tumbleweed’s services are free of charge and include crisis prevention; family counseling; adolescent support groups; information, advocacy, and referral to other community services; parenting courses; aftercare and assistance with location runaway youth and reuniting them with their parent/legal guardians.

General Information

Tumbleweed service youth ages 10-24 years old. We are open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. with a 24-hour Crisis Line.

Georgia Cady is the presenter for the Tumbleweed Orgainization

Paula will give a brief introduction for local service, human trafficking task force

Items to be discussed:

• Rural and remote does not mean that they are safer, as victims may be trafficked by friends and family.

• In rural areas we often see labor trafficking taking fthe form of agriculture work, ranching and service sales.

• There are often less services n remote areas, which results in fewer reports.

• Geographical isolation

• How lack of employment and lower income levels, creates more vulnerability.

• How rural areas, isolated locations are key locations for traffickers to sell their product.

• Identifiers and stigmas

• Fewer services are available in rural communities.

• Identifying local resources, hotlines and reporting of suspicious trafficking